


Dragons and Werewolves and Hacked Up Bodies

by hidley



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, eight year old stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:18:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidley/pseuds/hidley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had always wanted to be like his father, out chasing bad guys and shooting wild animals that had ordinary people screaming in terror. He idolised his dad, believing that he was the only reason the town wasn't burnt to cinders where it stood. If there was anything in the world that could harm the people of Beacon Hills, his dad could fight it off with one hand behind his back. </p><p>Well, that’s what he had always thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragons and Werewolves and Hacked Up Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a post by haletostilinski.tumblr.com

Stiles had always wanted to be like his father, out chasing bad guys and shooting wild animals that had ordinary people screaming in terror. He idolised his dad, believing that he was the only reason the town wasn’t burnt to cinders where it stood. If there was anything in the world that could harm the people of Beacon Hills, his dad could fight it off with one hand behind his back. 

Well, that’s what he had always thought. 

Stiles remembered being eight years old, and playing hide and seek with his mom at home one evening. She always hid in the same place, obviously because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide (Stiles always smiled in pity when he saw her fluffy slipper poking out from underneath the bed, and spent at least five minutes searching all around the house before eventually catching her, pretending he had had no idea where she’d been hiding. He thought it was kinder). 

It was early enough that Stiles knew he had hours before he needed to go to bed. And besides, he had to wait up for his dad. There had been lots of people over at the station this afternoon and Stiles was dying to know what was going on. He knew his father would tell him, he always did. Even when it was top secret, like when that dragon burned down the Hale house last winter.  
He heard the door before his mom did, and sped down the stairs and straight into his fathers arms. 

‘WHAT HAPPENED, DADDY, WHAT HAPPENED? WAS IT THE DRAGON? DADDY, TELL ME, PLEASE!’

His father had laughed and told him he would tell Stiles everything straight after he’d taken his Adderall. Without a seconds hesitation, Stiles was back upstairs and diving into his school bag to get his medication, completely oblivious to his parents quietly talking downstairs. 

When he came back into the living room again, he sat down on the carpet and listened to the stories from his dad’s day as the deputy of Beacon Hills.  
It was better than he had thought. 

The reason there were so many people at the station was because they had found the remains of a mauling from some strange beast in the woods. Maybe from a tiger, or a werewolf! 

His father never once smiled during his recounts of the things he had seen on the force. He told each story with deadly seriousness and Stiles loved it. If his father was going to be Sheriff one day (and he was positive he would be), he needed to take things like tiger maulings and dragon attacks seriously. 

After ten minutes of careful negotiation and expert persuasion, Stiles succeeded in getting the whole story, about how the body had been cut in half by the beast and hung up by it’s arms as a sign to the other tigers or lions or werewolves of the forest that Beacon Hills was claimed territory. 

His dad was just going to go on to the descriptions of the bodies when his mom came in and interrupted him. Stiles remembered how he whined and complained and begged to be told the rest but his mother was the Queen of the town and of course he had to obey her when she degreed that it was his bed time. He would have been a fool not to.  
He scrambled up the stairs and climbed underneath his covers. His parents came in to kiss him goodnight. When his father leaned down to him, Stiles whispered in his ear for him not to worry, that one day he’d be the Sheriff and Stiles would be his deputy and they’d keep the town safe from dragons and other beasts together. 

Just before Stiles fell asleep that night, he had looked out of his window at the full moon in the sky, and knew that one day, when he was big and strong like his dad, he would be just like him. He would protect his mom and all his friends from the monsters that came to attack Beacon Hills. He’d be brave and selfless and everyone would know he was the hero of the town. And his dad, of course. They’d both be heroes. 

Stiles remembered falling asleep that night with the biggest smile on his face, dreaming about the fighting and victories that were sure to come when he was older. He didn’t know at the time how much that was true. Well, less so the victories.  
Now Stiles wished that his younger self had never wished for those things. Because maybe if he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have grown up obsessed with finding criminal evidence before the force did. And maybe he wouldn’t have gone looking for that hacked up body in the woods that night because it made him remember what his father had told him all those years ago about the same type of murder. 

And maybe his best friend would have never been turned into a hideous beast of the night and his dad wouldn’t be in deathly trouble right now. 

Yeah.  
Maybe if he had been a little less heroic, he wouldn’t have dragged his father into this whole stinking mess at all.


End file.
